When I took Macc out last evening there was a very bright moon — but it was the street lights which were illuminating the aqueduct.
The forecast was correct this morning, in that there was some drizzle first thing, but only really while Macc and I were out for our early walk. Adrian needed to get something printed, and Nantwich Library doesn’t open until 10. He found his Cheshire East library card from some previous occasion (probably Poynton), and then headed into town, wanting to visit a couple of shops on the way. He rang me when he was heading back, and I got the boat ready and set off. As I approached the aqueduct, there were two boats coming the other way.
I was aiming for the water point, but one of the permanent moorers was already there so I pulled in opposite to wait. To be honest I was glad there was only us waiting; several boats had been past before I set off and I’d feared they might all be here in a queue. Adrian arrived back, and shortly afterwards we were able to push over to the services. The tank was down to a quarter and the tap turned out to be very slow, so even by the time we’d dealt with rubbish, recycling, food waste, and Elsan, and I’d been down to the chandler, and we’d chatted to another boat which had turned up, we were still nowhere near full. We gave up with the gauge on 60 per cent, and will top up properly tomorrow. We set off through the bridge.
Our modest target for the day was Hurleston Junction, somewhere we spent a lot of time last year while hanging around in this area. There was loads of space south of the junction so we pulled in and Adrian went to see how the moorings just north were fixed. They were empty, so we went through the junction bridge.
We went to our favourite spot at the far end of the moorings and tied up. As ever, the rings are wrongly spaced so they’re a bit too straight on, and the ledge under the water means we have a tyre deployed at the bow while the stern is too far out for any fender to be of any use. Lunch was steak bakes from the Rolling Pin bakery on Welsh Row, and then I took Macc over to the reservoir. This is really why we wanted to stop here: Macc hasn’t been able to have a good run around for a couple of days, but there’s plenty of room here. We walked up the locks and round Hurleston Reservoir, where the levels look pretty good.
From the top of the bank, the boat looks pretty small.
There’s a style in the fence round the top of the bank, so we used that to get onto the bank itself and I let Macc off. He had a whale of a time, dashing up and down.
Then I found that one of the paths leads to a kind of gap in the fence by the bottom lock. The lower rail is missing, so you can duck underneath, and it saves the walk up to the top lock and round. The forecast has also been correct in predicting sunny intervals this afternoon. We’ve had what seemed like loads of boats past, including several hire boats, presumably as it’s half term in some places.
2 miles, 0 locks. (340 miles, 221 locks)